INFINITI is the premium car manufacturer within the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Technical Partner to the Renault Sport Formula One™ Team, making the INFINITI brand the natural home for exploration of high-performance hybrid technology.

After five years as a sponsor in Formula One, in 2016 INFINITI made the daring move to become Technical Partner – leveraging its expertise in hybrids and contributing engineering resources to the Renault Sport Formula One Team.

INFINITI and the Renault Sport Formula One Team collaborate on the development of performance hybrid technology and co-developed the Power Unit’s Energy Recovery System (ERS), one of the most sophisticated technologies in motorsport.

With a second-generation ERS, co-developed by INFINITI, the hybrid system is a demonstration of what can be achieved by engineers as they advance the technology alongside Renault Sport Formula One expertise. The hybrid set-up incorporates two motor generator units and a battery for energy generation, energy capture, and energy deployment when most needed for a performance boost.

INFINITI in Formula One

The new generation ERS follows the successful debut of the INFINITI and Renault Sport Formula One collaboration in 2016 and features in the Power Unit of the new R.S.17.

The enhanced ERS technology has been developed by a group of INFINITI Performance Hybrid engineers based at the Renault Sport Formula One powertrain R&D facilities in Viry-Châtillon (France), alongside the Renault Sport Formula One Team.

“Performance Hybrid technology is one of INFINITI’s major strengths,” said Tommaso Volpe, INFINITI Global Motorsport Director. “We launched our first performance hybrid car in 2011 and we were the first car manufacturer to use this technology to boost performance rather than to reduce consumption; so when the Renault Sport Formula One Team decided to develop their ERS technology in-house, INFINITI emerged as the perfect partner to support them, as part of the Renault-Nissan Alliance.

“We are gaining invaluable experience in Performance Hybrid technology as a result of the collaboration with the Team, and this experience is being transferred back to our core business to improve future technology. Inspired by the dual-hybrid system proven in Formula One, the technology does not yet exist in a current road car, but was prominent in the Project Black S concept car revealed by INFINITI earlier this year.”

Cyril Abiteboul, Managing Director of the Renault Sport Formula One Team, said: “The Energy Recovery System element of our Formula One Power Unit is extremely complex and INFINITI has brought significant experience and expertise in hybrid technology to the team. The INFINITI engineers based in our facilities are working very closely with our engineering team and playing a key role in extracting the maximum possible performance from our ERS.”

“For INFINITI this is very strategic collaboration: we are part of the Renault-Nissan Alliance and with this partnership we extend the important technical synergy of the Alliance also to Formula One, generating together R&D on hybrid technology”, added Volpe.